ENroute Yearbook 2017-18
Modern Language and Film Undergraduate Module
Sibylle Ratz, The Business School, Senior Fellow
I developed the undergraduate module “Modern Language and Film” to provide a
cross-languages module for language students preparing to go abroad, but also
for those from the wider university interested in language issues. The module
introduces students to a corpus of post-war European films sharing common
themes related to identity, borders, migration and language. The module is taught
by a team of language lecturers, each concentrating on a film, or indeed a theme,
related to their own specialism. During the planning phase I worked collaboratively
with Learning Technologists who advised me on appropriate learning technology
to enhance the analysis of films. For instance, films were provided on a playlist on
Box of Broadcasts, and students were required to cut relevant films clips or images
from the films and embed these into Mahara for their presentations and interactive
essays. For assessment purposes students focussed on a film from their target
language, and they presented very creative Mahara pages on a topic of their choice
linked to culture and language (such as hybridity, contact zones, communities of
practice) or linguistic issues (such as subtitling, misunderstandings).
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